Saturday, February 27, 2016

#NeverTrump

I tuned into Hannity last night only because he was to spend the entire hour in a town hall with Ted Cruz.

If you've read any of my writings this election season, you know that I, and now many others, have pointed out Hannity's shameless slobbering love affair/bias for Donald Trump. To Hannity's credit, he sat there on a stool, not three feet from Cruz while the Texas Senator systematically dismantled Trump on every issue.

Cruz is no fool. If so many of us see Hannity for the blatant advocate of Trump that he is, Cruz sees it too. And there were times in the town hall when Hannity tried to steer Cruz off Trump's ass and Cruz wasn't having any of it, talking directly over Hannity.

It was delicious, despite Cruz' poor performance in the Q&A at the end.

This morning I ran across another conservative blog -- The Resurgent. It is something started by Eric Erickson of RedState. Erickson's basically a bit of a tool. Before she lost my support, Sarah Palin was a frequent target of Erickson -- who memorably posted an obvious photoshop of Palin with porn-star sized cleavage spilling out of a low-cut top, sitting on Santa's lap as the header for an article about her. When called on it, he made a feeble attempt at feigning ignorance of the obvious fake photo and then made the so what? argument as though conservatives haven't been railing for years at the nasty sexist insults aimed at conservative women.

But I think he has a good point in a recent article at this new blog. His point, perhaps self-serving on the part of those of us who don't want Trump as the Republican nominee, is that we need to make very public our position on the supposed inevitable nominee. And that is that we won't support him. In any way.

The RNC has called my home many times over the last weeks, and I have told their agent that I will not donate one penny to the RNC if they continue to remain idle as Trump destroys the party.

Erickson's article is very short, I'll excerpt a bit here about his reasoning for taking a stand now:

"He[Trump] is an authoritarian blending nationalist and tribal impulses, which historically has never worked out well for the nation that goes in that direction or the people in that nation.

It is absolutely important to disclose that we will not support Trump in the general election now. It shows that we are not sore losers whose nominee preference did not win, but rather are stating that if Trump does get the nomination, we will not support him and are making our declaration with enough time to stop him if his supporters listen to reason.

Explicitly stating our opposition, before he secures the nomination, will not stop people from saying we cost him the nomination. But in the historic record it will be clear we saw the rise of an authoritarian jackass, rejected him, and gave people ample time to heed the warnings before jumping off the cliff.

If Trump supporters choose to proceed, history will show what they will never concede — his defeat is on them, not us. With the rise of an authoritarian menace to our republic, it is important to go on record now, while he can be stopped, that we will play no part in his rise."

As I said, on one level it is a bit self-serving, a kind of don't blame me, I didn't vote for him position, one that I have mocked in the past. But where I have, genuinely I believe, pointed out that that position was borne of juvenile dislike of a particular candidate, this position is more firmly rooted in obvious fact -- Donald Trump is not a conservative. He never was. He won't win a general election. And should he by some miracle win the White House, he would be destructive beyond belief to conservative causes and the country in general.

I cannot vote for him. I already sent in my absentee ballot and I did not choose Trump. And I won't in the general if it comes to that. I won't entirely disdain from voting. There are important senate races and other things to be addressed. But as this post's title says --